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Travel: How to Use Your Phone Abroad...for Cheap

Dayvee Sutton is a two-time Emmy Award Winning sports journalist, entertainment and lifestyle reporter, social commentator and entrepreneur. You can learn more about her at www.dayveesutton.com
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Smartphones have revolutionized the way we travel. From staying in touch with folks back home to apps of all sorts, our phones play a big role in 21st-century travel... but they also can be really expensive.

But they don't have to be. Here's four tricks that will save you money and improve your mobile travel experience.1. Unlock your smart phone and purchase an international SIM card. Many major U.S. wireless carriers will now "unlock" your phone for you. This allows you to use a SIM card from any carrier in any country, which gets rid of those pesky roaming charges. You can purchase a prepaid SIM card when you arrive at your destination or, if you plan ahead, you can buy one in advance from a service like Keepgo or Telestial. 2. If you want a more traditional phone plan, try T-Mobile's "Simple Choice" plan.T-Mobile's plan costs $50 per month with no annual service contract. The plan includes unlimited texting and data in over 120 countries -- so if one of those countries is on your list of destinations, you're all set. International voice calls are a flat rate of 20 cents per minute, and there are no roaming charges for data or texting.This is what I did on a recent trip to Greece, and I racked up no extra charges.3. Regardless of your phone plan, use Wi-Fi as much as possible. Apps like Free Wi-Fi Finder use your phone's GPS to find free Wi-Fi in your area. Use it for data, for calls and texts.4. Save data and battery by turning data roaming off or putting your phone in airplane mode.Turning off your data will ensure that, when you're not on Wi-Fi, apps don't eat up all your data or make you exceed the data limit you have. You can still send and receive calls or texts while your data roaming is off. Keeping your phone in airplane mode will save your battery in a pinch. Disabling "push notifications" and manually loading your email will help save data as well.

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